


sweet, not lasting

by hamdeny (brooklynisosm)



Series: hamlet's teenage years AU [2]
Category: Hamlet - All Media Types, Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Underage Drinking, Underage Kissing, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, also btw there's no actual... sex scenes in here because no way am i writing that it stresses me out, but it's heavily implied because they are horny teenage boys, hooo boy this is a vent fic, oh btw Hamlet is 16 and Laertes is almost 18 so.. maybe illegal in some places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 18:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18628429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brooklynisosm/pseuds/hamdeny
Summary: There is a reason why Laertes was so adamant Ophelia stay away from Hamlet.There is a reason Hamlet doesn't know how to love.





	sweet, not lasting

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi hi hi hi hih i
> 
> im the one on tumblr who did the gay production of hamlet where ham and horatio kissed !!! that being said, don't take this story as canon within the universe of my hamlet production- think of this as more of an AU, where polonius is still a dad instead of a mom, etc, etc
> 
> i started writing this MONTHS ago and then i went through some shit and it developed and then i went through MORe shit and it changed even more and basically this has turned into thousands of words of me venting about how i always fall for the wrong people
> 
> (i always write projecting onto hamlet but in this one almost all my projecting has gone to horatio which is weird for me but anyway) 
> 
> PLS read the tags for possible triggers/warnings for stuff you may not wanna read! that being said, thank you for reading!

Hamlet and Ophelia love the river. They are both twelve years old and feel it, wading into the water with their clothes still on and squishing the mud between their toes in the way only children can really enjoy. Maybe they are not really children anymore, but they’d both like to hold onto it this summer, before it goes away. 

Hamlet emerges from the middle of the river, wiping water from his eyes and pushing his hair back. Ophelia is paddling around somewhere in the deeper part off the bank, but she’s good at swimming so she’s allowed to do that. Hamlet’s good at swimming too, but last time he tried to go out there, he panicked and Claudius had to go and pull him out. 

Through the water in his eyes, he catches the stare of Laertes. He’s sitting on the bank, on a picnic blanket, looking very warm and very annoyed. He sips from a can of coke. He, Hamlet thinks, does not want to be here, but there’s not really anywhere else he can be. 

“Why don’t you swim?” He shouts to Laertes. The other boy studiously ignores him, even though he definitely heard it. Hamlet paddles closer, to where his feet hit the bottom of the stream, the mud cold and smooth against his toes. “Laertes. It’s nice in here.” 

“It’s nice here too,” Laertes says. 

“You look hot.” 

“Well, thanks, but I don’t swing that way.” 

It takes Hamlet a moment to register the joke. When he does, his cheeks burn; he dunks his head under the water in shame and re-appears a few moments later, spitting some from his mouth. “I  _ meant  _ you look like you’re warm!” he sputters. “It’s- it’s what, ninety degrees?” 

“I’m fine out here.” 

Hamlet crawls out of the water, dripping, and flops onto the shore like a dead fish. The hot air hits him like a blanket just out of the dryer, and not in a good way. 

“How can you be comfortable in this? Just like, put your feet in or something.” 

“I don’t want to.” 

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t feel like it.” 

“But whyyyyyy?” 

“I don’t want to, Hamlet, so fuck off.” 

Hamlet feels something crumple inside of him, a little bubble of hope deflating. There’s a part of him that craves Laertes’ attention, his smile, as stupid as that feels. The boy’s barely two years older than him and most definitely at the same level of maturity. 

“You can’t talk to me like that,” he says defensively. 

“I just fucking did,” sneers Laertes, demonstrating just how grown-up he is. 

“Don’t fucking swear,” Hamlet bites back. 

“Or what?” 

“I’ll tell your dad.” 

“Shut up, Hamlet,” Laertes says, and sips his soda like he’s 23 at a frat party holding a beer. It amazes Hamlet how skilled Laertes is at looking like a douchebag. It really is an art. 

Hamlet tells him as much, and gets thrown into the river for it. He comes up laughing, and for a second he thinks he sees Laertes smile at him, too softly to be cruel. The moment’s passed as soon as it arrives though. 

* * *

 

_ ~Four years later~ _

 

Hamlet hates training with Laertes. 

Laertes is good at fencing.  _ Good _ is an understatement. Laertes is frighteningly phenomenal at fencing. Hamlet is very good (he’d have to be with the fortune his father paid for his lessons), but with Laertes he looks like a five-year-old finger painting next to Michelangelo. Every day they practice, and over and over and over again Hamlet is poked or prodded or pinned against something and inevitably defeated. This is almost always followed by a barrage of expletives and insults which leave his self esteem more bruised than his poor, pale body. 

He knows that Laertes doesn’t like him, though he doesn't know why. They had been friends at one time. Before Laertes’ and Ophelia’s mother died. Sometimes Hamlet still has dreams about it, the days that he and Laertes and Ophelia spent inseparable, filled with a kind of laughter he hasn’t known since. And then had been That Winter and suddenly Ophelia started sleeping over at Hamlet’s house as often as she could and Laertes started hating his guts. 

Hamlet could understand Ophelia- but Laertes? Laertes has always been a mystery. A mystery who Hamlet thinks would  _ pay  _ to give him to the Devil. 

So yeah, it’s been years and Laertes still hates him and he hates training with Laertes. 

“You’re fucking slow,” the older boy sneers, twirling his sword in a way that defies the laws of physics to hover a few inches from Hamlet’s throat. “And dead. Again.” 

“Aren’t you supposed to be tutoring me?” Hamlet says, looking up through his bangs. 

“I  _ am _ tutoring you.” 

“You’re beating the shit out of me.” Hamlet takes the point of the rapier between his fingers and pushes it away. “It’s not really the same thing.” 

Something must snap in Laertes, because his rapier is thrown away in an instant and: “I’m sorry,  _ my Lord _ ,” he says, and, okay, he’s grabbed Hamlet by the collar again, which is ridiculous and  _ definitely  _ not warranted or appropriate for the situation, and Hamlet can smell his cologne- some ridiculously expensive stuff he orders special from France to seem more important than he is- and  _ fuck,  _ Hamlet shouldn’t  _ like  _ it-  “I’m helping you to the best of my ability. It’s not my fault you can’t keep up.” 

“Maybe I’d keep up better if  _ someone  _ actually did his job and helped me get better instead of finding every possible way to fictionally kill me-” 

“If you think I’m that bad, then why are you here?” 

Hamlet’s back is against a wall, which is. Well. It’s just great. 

_ Horatio will think this is hilarious,  _ he thinks weakly, though Hamlet knows, somehow, that he won’t tell Horatio about any of this. 

“Believe me, if I didn’t have to be here, I wouldn’t. But my father’s orders are kind of hard to disobey. You know, with him being the king and all, when he says he wants me to be more of a man, it means I have to-” 

“Why are you  _ here?”  _ Laertes interrupts, silencing Hamlet. His eyes are the same color as his sister’s, but have an intensity that Ophelia’s don’t. It sends an involuntary shiver down Hamlet’s spine, though the room is really very hot. 

“Well, Laertes, unfortunately, my parents had sex one night-”

Laertes pushes him harder against the wall. “You could have any fencing partner you wanted,” he says through gritted teeth. “Yet for some godforsaken reason you tell your daddy to get me to do it?” He is close to Hamlet. Very close. “You know what, fuck you, Hamlet. I know what you’re doing, and it’s not gonna work-” 

“What are you talking about?” Hamlet yells. The force of it makes Laertes let go of him a bit. He takes a deep, shuddery breath; the stupid cologne is still there, in his brain. Quieter now. “You’re not… making sense…  I mean, if you want to know why I chose you, it’s not because I was trying to… I don’t know, ruin your life or whatever. It’s because we used to be- friends. Because I know you.” He swallows. “But if I’d known you hate me so fucking much I would’ve asked for someone else.” 

“I don’t-” 

Laertes stops mid-sentence. Hamlet watches his jaw clench. A sharp jaw. 

“You know what I’m talking about,” he says instead. 

“I don’t-” 

“Stop.” Laertes’ eyes travel Hamlet’s body. Up. And Down. Hamlet feels a blush rise on his cheeks- a reaction that only serves to make him more flustered. What does Laertes see? 

“What?” he says, something rising in his chest- anger or tears or something else or maybe a strange blend of the three. “Stop what? Existing? If I could do that I would’ve a long time ago, but not for your sake-” 

An emotion cousin to guilt flashes across Laertes’ face. “Shut up. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what  _ did _ you mean? I can’t read your mind! I don’t know what you think I’m trying to do, and I definitely don’t know why you hate me so much. But you don’t  _ say  _ anything to me, so you can’t expect me to-” 

His words are cut off when Laertes steps forward and pulls a move on Hamlet’s blind side. It’s sudden, how Laertes’ hands hold his face, how Hamlet’s heart combusts. How Laertes kisses him angrily, like he’s only done it so he doesn’t have to hear Hamlet’s voice anymore. 

It’s nothing like when he kissed Horatio. The opposite of soft or shy- Laertes’ mouth is warm and biting against his and somehow it is both the most terrifying and the hottest thing Hamlet has ever experienced. And then as soon as it’s there, it’s gone, Laertes shoving him away and crossing his arms. 

“That’s not an explanation,” Hamlet says, his breath all gone.  “You’ve only made me more confused.” 

“What do you want me to say?” Laertes glares at him, but he looks like how Hamlet feels. Embarrassed and flustered and turned on. 

“I don’t know,” Hamlet says, the heat in his chest burning hotter. “Tell me something. Tell me what I did wrong.” 

“I hate-” Laertes seems to cut himself off, angrily, frustrated, “I hate looking at you.” 

Hamlet’s little gold piece of hope turns back into lead. 

“And you fucking  _ know,  _ you know what I want, and you make me feel like shit for it constantly- I swear you’re  _ trying  _ to make me miserable so whatever. Go fuck Horatio or whatever-” 

“ _ What _ do you think I know?” 

“This!” Laertes yells. “This, how I fee- ...You just want to rub it in my face.” 

“How you feel?” Hamlet says softly. It lingers in the air. Laertes’ eyes spark; Hamlet thinks the two of them are highly flammable. 

“Fuck it,” Laertes says, and pushes him against the wall and kisses him again, and Hamlet doesn’t do a thing to stop him. 

Laertes loves like he fights: quick, rough, yet somehow perfectly in form. His kisses give no time for Hamlet to catch up; he’s left breathless and unable to do anything but keep going, keep parrying for a victory, though he’s not sure what victory entails. All he knows is Laertes pressed against him, searing hot, violent in the way he bites and unbuttons, an endless duel. And Hamlet knows he’ll never win this one but that won’t stop him from trying. 

“What if… somebody…” he manages to gasp out. 

“They won’t,” Laertes mutters, somehow unaffected by the fact that his shirt is lying somewhere meters away and Hamlet’s will be similarly discarded in a matter of seconds. “Locked the door.” Hamlet can  _ feel  _ Laertes’ mouth form a smirk against his skin. “‘M smarter than you think.” 

Hamlet wants to reply but he is interrupted by a nip at his neck, which floods all the blood in his brain to… somewhere else. 

This is a terrible idea- that is without doubt. If Hamlet’s head were clearer he would push Laertes away, say they have practice to do, say that Laertes doesn’t really want this, but at this point he’s too far over the edge to do anything except stifle a cry and fist his hands in Laertes’ hair. Tomorrow he’ll regret it and cover his marks, but right now, the door is locked and Laertes maybe wants to be his friend again and definitely wants to fuck him and so Hamlet lets go, stops thinking, and bites back. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After, they lie boneless on the mats, half-dressed. They are not touching, though Hamlet wants to reach out and touch Laertes. His eyes are closed.  _ Is he sleeping?  _ Hamlet studies his face: his lips, pink, slightly parted, the curve of his nose, his cheekbones, his jaw. He’s pretty, in a strange way. Like this, when he isn’t frowning or yelling or speaking, he looks shockingly like Ophelia. 

Hamlet is struck with a painful urge to bury his face in Laertes’ neck, to be held by him. It frightens him, how he wants to touch Laertes- soft, gentle. Two things he never thought he could find anywhere in the proximity of his… what? Enemy? Hamlet can’t think of Laertes as his enemy. Not when-

Well, if he thinks about it he’ll want to do it again and that won’t help anything. 

“Stop thinking so hard,” Laertes growls with still-shut eyes. 

“I thought you were sleeping,” Hamlet says.

“I know.” 

For a moment, the only sound is both of their breathing. 

“Laertes?” 

“Hamlet.” 

It is nearly impossible for him to say it. “Why...” 

Laertes opens one eye to look at him. “What?” 

“Why do you hate me so much?” 

The eye closes, and Laertes lies there, still, for a second. Shame rises in Hamlet’s throat, warm and too much like tears. 

“Forget it,” he begins, but with a movement that surprises him, Laertes rolls over and takes hold of his waist, pulling him closer and- in a strike Hamlet could not predict- embracing him. 

“You’re a fucking idiot, Hamlet.” 

Hamlet sinks into his arms. His voice is too high when he whispers: “Are we friends?” 

Laertes says nothing, but shifts their bodies closer so that Hamlet’s head rests on his chest. A fidgety hand cards through his hair. 

“Don’t tell anyone or I’ll ruin your life,” Laertes says into his hair, and then, like an afterthought, “bitch.” His words are harsh but his tone holds a tenderness, a nervousness that makes Hamlet want to cry again. 

Instead, he curls more into Laertes’ side, breathing in his stupid French cologne, and tries not to think about the consequences. 

* * *

 

 

“Horatio, have you ever had sex?” 

“No,” comes the reply from somewhere behind him.

“Okay.” Hamlet says. 

“Why didn’t you ask me?” Ophelia fakes annoyance. She’s doing makeup in front of the huge mirror in Hamlet’s bedroom, something with her eyebrows now. 

Hamlet rolls onto his back on the bed, kicking his legs. “Because I know you haven’t.” 

“Why? Because I have a vagina?” 

“Don’t say vagina. Also, no. Because I know you would have told me about it.” 

Ophelia sighs. “Yeah,” 

“Yeah,” Horatio echoes, typing furiously. 

“Why am I not allowed to say vagina?” 

“Because I’m sixteen and it makes me feel gross.” 

“Hamlet, you talk about your dick all the time,” she deadpans. 

“Because I’m not serious,” Hamlet says. “And it makes me feel not gross because it’s  _ my _ dick. Like for example I’m not going to make jokes about… like…  Horatio’s dick. Or… or Laertes’ dick, you know, because that would be weird. And I’ve never seen either of them. Not Horatio’s and definitely not Laertes’. Or your vagina. And this is a really uncomfortable thing for me to be saying so I’m going to stop now. Ew.” 

There’s a long, gut-squirming silence in which Hamlet regrets being born. 

“Why did you ask if I’d had sex?” Horatio asks, finally looking up from his laptop. 

Hamlet can feel his face turn red. “I don’t know,” he says. “I was just wondering.” His voice cracks. 

“Wait.” Ophelia jumps up, in what seems like a split second appearing next to Hamlet on the bed. “Did you do something?” 

“What? Me? No. I didn’t do anything. And by anything I mean sex. I didn’t do sex, and frankly, I think it’s ridiculous you jumped to that conclusion just from me asking an innocent question. I am a good Christian boy. My mother is downstairs. Get your mind out of the gutter!” 

“Who was it?” 

“No one. It’s not important.” 

“So there was someone.” 

“No!”

Ophelia grabs his chin and studies his face. Ok, that’s not fair because she looks like Laertes and Hamlet is just definitely not having a good time right now. 

“You’re blushing,” she declares. “Who was she? Please don’t tell me it was that girl in our theater class who keeps trying to do scenes with you. She’s, like, evil.” 

“No! Ok, first of all, she’s dating Macbeth, so that would be bad and wrong. And second of all, I didn’t sleep with anyone. Horatio, back me up here.”

“You  _ have  _ been acting strangely.” Horatio stands and crosses to Hamlet’s bed, where he sits on the other side. 

Hamlet mines being stabbed in the heart. “Et tu, Brute?” 

Horatio puts his hands up. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just sharing my observation.” 

“I can’t believe Hamlet is the first of us to be deflowered,” Ophelia says, looking him up and down. “I mean, it’s  _ Hamlet.”  _

“I can,” Horatio mumbles to the bed. 

“You have no proof,” says Hamlet, his cheeks burning. “You have literally no reason to think that I did… that.” 

“See?” Ophelia shakes her head. “He can’t even say it, yet he’s the first. Life doesn’t make sense.” 

“Laertes isn’t a virgin,” Hamlet says. “So I’m not the first. Hypothetically. If I were also not a virgin. I wouldn’t… be the first.” 

“You don’t know that,” says Ophelia. 

“It’s  _ Laertes,”  _ he groans. “You know, I bet he’s never even jerked off because he has always had someone to take care of it for him.” 

“Ew. Ew. Ew.” Ophelia covers her ears. “That’s my BROTHER.” 

“That’s what you get for making false accusations,” Hamlet says, falling back onto his mattress. “This conversation is over. You wanna get bubble tea?” 

 

* * *

 

 

Hamlet and Laertes do not speak in the hall. But their eyes meet for a period of time too long to be a second. Hamlet quirks the corner of his mouth up, just a tad, just so his teeth show a bit. Laertes’ mouth doesn’t change, but his eyes do, and Hamlet can’t really describe how. 

* * *

 

The text says:  _ My family’s not home _

Hamlet reads it several times before the meaning registers. 

Is Laertes  _ booty calling  _ him? 

Their thing, whatever it is, has been going on for over a month now, but never has this happened. It seems rather ridiculous. Laertes does know booty calls aren’t an actual thing, right? Or are they and Hamlet is just inexperienced? 

Either way, he texts back. 

H:  _ i can’t drive.  _

L:  _ right I forgot  _

H:  _ you never forget ways to make fun of me :)  _

L:  _ 10 minutes _

Hamlet, again, does not understand the meaning of such a cryptic and ominous text, so when, 11 minutes later, he hears the roar of Laertes’ camaro coming through the gates, he makes an embarrassingly frantic dash to his closet for something not pajama-shaped. He doesn’t know why he makes the effort- whatever he wears will inevitably be shed soon enough- but for some reason he cares. For some reason he wants to look nice for Laertes. And that is a scary thought. 

**~~~~~**  


It’s in post-coital haze that Hamlet takes the time to look around Laertes’ bedroom. 

It’s changed since they were kids. Obviously the bed is bigger, and there’s a full-length mirror on the wall now, and the walls have been repainted something more muted than the red he had as a child. Only one wall of red remains, behind the bed, perpendicular to the big window that looks out on the grounds outside. 

It’s basically what you’d expect for a rich, teenage jock: rows of athletic trophies on shelves above his desk, what Hamlet assumes to be his favorite rapier on a hook by the door, a poster signed by some famous guy he should probably know. It’s like something out of a Pottery Barn Teen catalog, all dark, polished woods and hard angles. Like Laertes himself had not a single word in how his bedroom turned out- his father ordered things and had them built and now Laertes lives in this shrine to the young man he performs as. 

But, Hamlet notices, there are pieces of personality scattered throughout the room. He squints at some pictures framed on Laertes’ desk. He makes out human figures but not much else. 

“Your room is so different from Ophelia’s,” Hamlet says to empty air. 

Laertes sighs. “Would you not talk about my sister right now?” 

“Why not? Don’t you love her?” 

Laertes stares at him with an open-mouthed disgust. “Yes, I fucking love my sister,  _ Hamlet,  _ but she’s not really want to think about when I’ve just had  _ sex _ .” 

“Oh,” Hamlet grimaces. “Noted.” 

“I need a shower.” 

Before Hamlet says anything, Laertes leaves for the bathroom, leaving Hamlet to find his clothes and put them back on. Once he’s buttoned the bare minimum of buttons, he crosses to the desk, still curious about the photos. 

There’s two framed photographs on the desk, actually, one almost entirely obscured by the other. The one in front is a punch in Hamlet’s gut. Laertes and Ophelia and their mother during the holidays, cheeks flushed with merriment. They’re nearly teenagers- Ophelia  twelve, Laertes fourteen- but look younger, decked out in red and green and gold, with their mother in the middle. She’s wearing a Santa hat and beaming, like there isn’t a place in the world she’d rather be, like nothing at all is wrong. 

It must, Hamlet realizes, with a pang of sickness, be the last Christmas they ever had together. 

The second photo, however, is less of a painful memory and more of a shock. Laertes and Hamlet, maybe ten years old, in fencing uniforms. Their arms are around each other in what Hamlet can only describe as an embrace. Hamlet was much shorter, and Laertes nearly rests his chin upon the younger boy’s head. Little Hamlet has tears down his face, but he’s smiling. 

And Hamlet remembers this picture. It was his first fencing tournament, one they played in together. Laertes was much better than Hamlet, always had been, so competed in a different bracket entirely, but Hamlet had lost, and his father had been upset, and he’d started crying, and Laertes had found him. Laertes, who held a blue ribbon from a winning streak, and held it out to Hamlet, and said “You’ll have one of your own soon, but until then you can borrow mine.” 

Laertes’ mom took this picture, in the post-tournament buzz, where Hamlet clutched the ribbon he hadn’t won, and Laertes’ waist, like a lifeline. 

“What are you looking at?” says Laertes, from the doorway. 

Hamlet jumps, shoving the photo back into its place. “Nothing. Nothing.” He frowns. “That was a really short shower.” 

“I learned it from football,” Laertes said. “Shower fast and get out before anyone else shows up.” 

“What? I pegged you for the guy who’d shower the longest. You know, to show off your toned body or… or whatever.” 

“You think I’m toned?” 

“I don’t think it’s a matter of opinion. That’s just a fact about you.”

“Well, Hamlet,” Laertes says, an unreadable expression on his face, “I don’t really want to shower in front of other guys.” 

It takes Hamlet a minute to put the pieces together. 

“Because-” 

“What are you looking at?” Laertes says quickly. 

Hamlet gestures to the photos. “Those.” 

Laertes looks at them too. His face softens into something kinder than usual. 

“I still have that ribbon,” Hamlet says quietly. “I never… I never got first place for myself.” 

Laertes is silent. 

“That’s where you laugh at me,” Hamlet supplies. “Or say I’m a loser, or something.” 

“Do you wanna play video games?” Laertes says. “We have Mario Party.” 

**~~~~~**  


“Oh, my God,” Hamlet says. 

“What the fuck?” Laertes says. 

Hamlet drops the controller, bouncing on the couch like a little kid. “Yes!” he cries, with a fist pump. “Finally, I’ve found something you’re not better than me!” 

Laertes rolls his eyes, whacking Hamlet with a pillow. “Shut up.” 

“I am, though. You can’t deny- this  _ one  _ thing. Mario Party. I am better at Mario Party than you.” 

“Are you kidding?” Laertes scoffs, and Hamlet feels his heart sink in his chest. Just as he’s started to- what? Be friends with Laertes? It seems unbelievable and Hamlet expects the approaching conversation will only solidify that. 

“Look, it was a jo-” he starts. 

“You’re good at everything, Hamlet. Mario Party is stupid.” 

Hamlet can almost feel his own jaw drop. 

“What?” 

“I mean you’re smart. And you like, play music too, and your theater stuff. You always play the ones who go crazy or die.” 

“You’ve seen my shows?” 

“Yeah, Ophelia’s dragged me to a lot of your plays,” Laertes said, running a self-conscious hand through his hair. “I always leave before they end, so no one knows I’m there.” 

Hamlet huffs. “Of course you do. Mr. Sports Muscle Guy. Wouldn’t want anyone thinking you have enough of a brain to process musical theatre.” 

“Shut up.” 

“Anyway, I’m not better than you. I kind of suck. At everything.” Hamlet grins halfheartedly at him. “You’re on the honor roll.” 

Laertes laughs, bitterly. “Only reason I do well in school is cause I have to, for fucking scholarships and family reputation and all that shit. . . As soon as I’m 18, I’m out of here.” 

“What about Ophelia?” 

“What?” 

“You’ll leave her alone?” 

“She’s got good friends like you and. Uh. Like you and Horatio. She doesn’t need me.” 

“Yeah, she does. You’re her brother.” Hamlet curls his knees up to his chest. He wonders briefly how he got here: sitting in his dad’s employee’s house, after sex, having some sort of heart-to-heart with  _ Laertes.  _ He doesn’t think he’s heard Laertes speak this many words at one time since they were kids. “She really loves you, you know.” 

Laertes shifts uncomfortably. “She loves you too.” 

“She has a lot of love to give,” says Hamlet. “She’s an amazing person. Don’t leave her.” 

Laertes leans his head back on the arm of the couch. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he says, his jaw set, but Hamlet can see his eyes working on something. 

“You’re gonna marry her someday, aren’t you?” Laertes says suddenly. There’s a line between his eyebrows. 

Hamlet laughs. “Marry her?” 

“You always said you would. When we were kids.” 

It was true- when they were little, Hamlet and Ophelia had promised to marry each other, because Ophelia wanted to be a princess, and because Hamlet thought if he had to marry a girl, Ophelia was his favorite one (besides his mom, but his mom didn’t count). But they were children.

“Yeah,” Hamlet says, “When we were  _ kids _ .” 

“It would be weird,” Laertes says, “if we were brothers in law.” 

“Yeah,” Hamlet says, shuddering. “That would be like if my mom married  _ Claudius.  _ Why are you thinking about me marrying Ophelia? Dude, she can do so much better.” 

“Yeah, she can,” Laertes says, a glint of humor in his eyes. 

“Hey!” Hamlet pounces on him in fake anger. He ends up somehow on top of Laertes, straddling him, hands on either side of his head. It’s an accident. Probably. 

“I think you just want me to yourself,” he murmurs. “Fucking selfish. You can share.” 

Laertes’ eyes darken. “Don’t be a slut.” 

“Says the slut.” 

“I don’t know why I like you,” Laertes says, and kisses him, and Hamlet wants to question the part about Laertes liking him because that’s new but when they kiss his brain kind of turns off and it just feels so much better not to think. 

Maybe that’s why he likes Laertes. Because he doesn’t have to think.

 

* * *

 

No one can know about it. 

At first it’s easy. When you live in a castle, it is not a Herculean task to find hidden nooks and crannies, places where people will never have reason to go. Fencing practice is an easy excuse, and they start having it more. 

Hamlet’s father is pleased.  _ If only he knew,  _ Hamlet thinks grimly, when he’s patted on the back. It’s funny in a very bleak way. 

Although they aren’t completely lying. Hamlet does want to become better at fencing, and Laertes, when he isn’t trying to humiliate Hamlet every few seconds, is actually a pretty good teacher. Hamlet feels his arms growing stronger, his movements more graceful. He is impressed by his own ability, when he really puts his mind to it. Perhaps he could even win a ribbon of his own. 

The day he beats Laertes using one of his own techniques against him, Laertes kisses him breathless and mumbles something into his mouth that sounds suspiciously like “proud of you”. Hamlet doesn’t ask, though, because then other things happen and he isn’t thinking anymore. 

Yeah, at first it’s easy. 

And physically, it doesn’t get more difficult. The trouble arises inside Hamlet’s brain. 

He wants to talk to someone about it. He wants to talk about Laertes, and Laertes’ stupid face, and how sometimes he says things that are strangely insightful even though he has rocks for brains, how when Hamlet says something funny he’ll do this wonky little half smile that means he’s trying to hold back a laugh, but sometimes he fails and he does laugh and it’s a nice sound, not mean or mocking but just… nice. He wants to talk about how Laertes kisses him now even when they’re not going to have sex. Laertes kisses him in forgotten corners in between classes, kisses him hello or goodbye, kisses him when he does something stupid. He wants to talk about the weird feeling in his chest when they pass each other in the hallway and Laertes brushes their shoulders together. 

He wants Ophelia to know. He feels like he’s lying to her, and it isn’t a good feeling.

But more, he wants to tell Horatio. He needs to tell Horatio. He needs to talk to Horatio about this because at some point Hamlet’s brain has gotten as confused as his body and when he feels this way he always talks to Horatio. And he knows Horatio wouldn’t tell anyone. Horatio is his ride or die; he can trust his friend completely. 

Yet some sick feeling holds him back. For some reason he thinks Horatio would not like to hear about this. For some reason he thinks it would make Horatio angry. And he doesn’t like that. And he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

So he keeps it to himself, and feels his body succumb more and more to Laertes’ flame.

 

* * *

Horatio hasn’t been talking to him. 

He doesn’t notice it for a little bit because he’s  _ busy.  _ He has fencing practice and homework and play rehearsals and music lessons and the crushing pressure of his father’s expectations and Laertes. Because there’s only enough room in Hamlet’s life for one person to get full attention from him and it’s always been Horatio but things change and it’s weird and he sees Laertes way more than he should. 

And so it feels natural that he is seeing Horatio less, talking to him less. That’s just how things are sometimes; they balance and shift, but he knows in the end it will always come back to HamletandHoratio (it always does). 

Except then Horatio is quiet when they do talk. And then Horatio is hanging out with Ophelia and not him. And Horatio and Ophelia never hang out without Hamlet because they are friends outside of him but they always come to  _ his  _ house. And now they’re not. 

Hamlet doesn’t know why. 

He asks Ophelia, who shrugs and says “He’s upset with you. I don’t know why,” but Hamlet’s known her long enough to know she’s lying. He doesn’t press though, because he knows whatever it is Horatio will be nicer in telling him because Horatio never, ever says anything that would hurt Hamlet (he’s nice and safe that way, and the opposite of Laertes). 

He takes it upon himself to find out during study hall, because that is when he absolutely knows where Horatio will be and cannot avoid him. The library is meant to be a no-talking zone but it’ll have to do. 

“Are you mad at me?” Hamlet says in a low voice, leaning against a bookshelf. 

Horatio jumps, startled out of some sort of book-induced trance. He’s kneeling on the floor, in the alley between two long rows of shelves, dusty tomes scattered around him. “Jesus Christ, I didn’t know you were there.” he says, pushing up his glasses. 

“Sorry,” Hamlet says, still quietly. “I’m like a cat.” 

He waits for Horatio to make the obligatory furry joke, because while Horatio is an emotionally mature scholar, there are some things Hamlet has corrupted him in. Except Horatio doesn’t make the joke. He doesn’t say anything at all. 

“Are you mad at me?” Hamlet says again, louder. 

“Shh,” says Horatio. “No.” 

“Why don’t I believe that?” 

Horatio sighs. “I’m busy right now. And I’m sure you have better things to be doing too. So please just leave me alone.” 

His tone is still the same mild one Hamlet has grown to know inside out, but the words are harsher than maybe anything Horatio has ever said to him. It feels like a slap in the face. 

“Okay, no, I’m not leaving, because obviously you’re pissed and if you have a fucking problem with me why don’t you say it to my face instead of bitching about it to Ophelia behind my back?’ 

It surges out of him before he realizes that this is not the way he talks to Horatio. It feels as though there is a dragon inside him, awakening from slumber to protect its useless treasure. He’s talking the way he talks to Laertes. He’s talking like Laertes. 

“I don’t want to discuss this here or now,” Horatio says, his voice forcefully flat. “So please-” 

“Where would you rather discuss it?” Hamlet says. He still feels confrontational; it rears up inside of him and he knows he shouldn’t be getting so angry but for some reason he won’t stop. “It’s not like we see each other anymore.” 

“And whose doing is that?” Horatio snaps back. 

Hamlet wants to shout. It’s irrational, how pissed he is- Horatio isn’t even  _ doing  _ anything, but maybe that’s why. He wants Horatio to fight back. And Horatio’s just  _ sitting  _ there, just letting Hamlet be angry.  _ If he’s so upset he should just be honest instead of keeping it quiet and hiding behind his books.  _

He should stop looking at Hamlet like he’s disappointed. Like Hamlet has done something wrong. Hamlet hasn’t done anything wrong. He knows he hasn’t done anything wrong. 

“What is your problem?” he spits. 

“My problem,” Horatio says, studiously not looking at him, “is that you’re being an asshole.” 

So this is where he snaps. “Why? Because I’m not just hanging out with you? Because god forbid, I have other friends? Friends who want to do shit besides sitting at home all the time and doing homework? Because I’m not fucking depressed? I know you don’t want to see it, but I’m actually having fun for the first time in fucking years. That doesn’t make me an asshole.” 

Horatio says nothing. 

“You’re just jealous.” Hamlet continues. “I’m sorry you don’t know how to have fun. But that’s not my problem.” 

Horatio is breathing hard. It takes Hamlet a second to realize he’s crying. 

Something twists uncomfortably in his stomach. It hits him how small Horatio is, kneeling on the floor beneath him. 

Horatio wipes at his cheeks with furious precision. He looks up at Hamlet, his face red. 

“I don’t know who you are anymore,” he says softly, and  _ runs  _ away. He doesn’t take any of his books with him. He leaves his jacket too. 

Hamlet picks it up, trying in desperation to tell himself he’s not the bad guy here. 

**~~~~~**  


So Laertes is his only friend. 

That’s a twist of fate. 

He’s fallen in with Laertes’ crowd. They’re the kind of people who talk very loud and never have anything nice to say. None of them know the truth of his relationship with Laertes; they accept him because over the past few months he’s gotten scarily good at fencing, and because he’s the crown prince of Denmark. It’s surprising to him, how easy it is for him to be one of the cool kids when he acts like one. He has never been at the top of the food chain. It’s terrifying and thrilling. 

He sits with Laertes and Demetrius and Hal and Oliver at their lunch table, and his thigh presses against Laertes’ when no one can see. He doesn’t say much. He listens to them laugh. He listens to their conquests. Usually it’s okay, but sometimes. Well. 

Demetrius took Helena’s virginity at a party last weekend and now she won’t stop calling him and he laughs at her innocent face hidden behind big glasses. Hamlet likes Helena; she’s smart, and nice, and witty in a quiet way and she reminds him of Horatio and when Demetrius talks about how she was in bed he feels sick so he goes and sits in the bathroom for a while and he tries very hard not to cry. 

Laertes is his only friend and his grades are slipping. His mother notices, finally; she’s been drinking a lot more because his father is in town. It’s on one of her more sober days that she asks him if he’s okay. He kisses her cheek and says he’s tired lately, but he’ll make sure to try harder. 

He barely goes to classes that week. He and Laertes skip and drive around. They have sex in the backseat, and Hamlet falls asleep afterwards. He didn’t lie to his mother; he’s so tired. 

Horatio won’t even look at him anymore. 

* * *

It’s a Friday night and they’ve been drinking when Laertes says  _ I love you.  _

Hamlet is a coward. Or maybe he is very brave. 

He runs. 

* * *

Hamlet wakes up knowing something is wrong. There’s a nervous buzzing in the air, like tiny bugs that crawl into his ears and mouth and down through his body into his chest where they jump around and make his heart pound with something that sounds like dread. His mouth is sour and he feels as though he’s been eaten by a whale and gone through its digestive tract. He never has done well with a hangover, though that hasn’t stopped him from drinking himself sick when there are things he doesn’t want to think about. 

Like last night, for example. 

With a nauseous jolt, Hamlet rolls over, pulling his blankets around him, a cocoon. He covers his ears with his hands, trying to block out the shouting that echoes from inside his head. The way he had cried. The way Laertes had crie-

Fucking hell. He needs a good tooth brushing and a long bath- he needs to be  _ clean-  _ but he doesn’t want to… no, he  _ can’t _ leave this bed. The bugs are telling him he can’t. And well, when tiny anxiety insects tell you there’s something to dread, you have no choice to listen to them. At least, not if you’re Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. 

So he lies there in his blanket cocoon, maybe for a minute, maybe for hours, staring at his ceiling where January light pools like honey, mesmerized by the glow. It’s not until he is overwhelmed with a need to urinate that he stirs from his repose. 

He rises, pads to his bathroom. Pees. Washes his hands. Downs two glasses of water and some ibuprofen, though he knows without breakfast it’ll make him sick; he’s already nauseous often enough, it won’t make much of a difference. 

His face in the mirror is someone he doesn’t quite recognize, a boy with cheeks thinner and eyes dimmer than his own. He’s lost weight, and his hair has grown out past the point of fashion into thick bangs that dust his eyelashes and a mullet-esque chunk in the back. In his months running around after Laertes he’s forgotten to be himself.  He looks tired and sad and a little bit unstable if you squint. Hamlet wonders if this makes him seem frighteningly attractive, or just frightening. He wonders if he cares. 

He drinks another glass of water. 

From his bedroom, he hears a buzzing sound which he recognizes dully as his text alert, followed by another, followed by another.  _ I’m so popular,  _ he thinks, coughing a laugh to himself. It’s probably Ophelia sending pictures of her puppy, because she still tries to talk to him, sometimes. His mom nagging him to come down for breakfast some time in the next decade. 

Maybe, he thinks with a spark of hope and a twist of dread, it’s Laertes. Still angry. Trying to apologize. Some mix of the two. Maybe it will be okay. 

_ Maybe it’s Horatio.  _

Wiping his mouth on a baggy sleeve, he shuffles back into his room, his heart a-beat-beating unreasonably fast. Now the phone is buzzing repeatedly from its place on his bedside table- a call.  _ Bitch,  _ he thinks,  _ I don’t answer the fucking phone.  _ Still, he unplugs it and checks the ID-  _ Ophelia.  _ No puppy. Something serious? 

Against his every instinct, Hamlet taps the answer call button and is immediately greeted by Ophelia’s voice. 

“Hamlet, thank God, I know you hate the phone but I’ve been texting you for, like, half an hour-”

“Ophelia?” Hamlet sinks onto the end of his bed, running a hand through his hair. “Are you okay?”

“Am  _ I  _ okay?” Her voice gets higher, if possible. “This has nothing to do with me… I mean, yeah, I’m angry because my brother is an  _ asshole  _ but, my god, I thought maybe you would try to- I don’t know. I’ve just been worried.” 

“What?” 

“God, Hamlet, I’m just so sorry- I swear I didn’t know he was gonna do that; I would have stopped him if I had-” 

“Ophelia,” Hamlet says, his heart beating with such ferocity he hears the pulse in his ears, “what happened?” 

“Oh.” All energy on the other side of the line dies, like someone has pulled Ophelia’s plug. All of a sudden, she is soft, with a pity in her tone that worsens Hamlet’s nausea. “You don’t know?” 

“I just woke up…” Hamlet says, a lackluster laugh on his lips, bile rising in his throat. 

“Oh,” Ophelia breathes again. “Well, I… I don’t really know how to tell you this.” 

“Tell me  _ what?”  _

“Look, I just want you to know that Laertes was drunk, and he didn’t mean- I mean, I’m sure he wasn’t trying to-” 

All the air leaves Hamlet’s lungs. “Is he hurt?”  _ I killed Laertes. Fuck. Fuck. He drove drunk and angry and fuck- _

“No, no, no, he’s not hurt, he’s fine. He’s just  _ great _ ,” she says, a bite on her tongue. “No… he. Well. The thing is.” 

“The thing is  _ what _ , Ophelia?” 

“Laertes was drunk and he was angry at you for some reason- he wasn’t making sense; I don’t know what it was but… he was so  _ upset  _ after you left and I tried to talk some sense into him but it just made him angrier and… I don’t know what he did, exactly, but he… he got in contact with the press.” 

A bomb is dropped into Hamlet’s chest, the fuse burning fast and hard. 

“He said that you had… made a move on him. That you said that… that you loved him- and, I mean, I know it’s not true but it’s everywhere especially since there were already rumors-” 

It detonates. 

“I- I have to go,” says Hamlet. Ophelia is still speaking but he throws his phone down on the bed, not even bothering to hang up. He tries to stand up and nearly falls over- he’s shaking, he realizes, as he grips a bedpost to steady himself. The nausea floods his body, suddenly, and he sprints to the bathroom, making it just in time to vomit into the shower. He’s left gasping and blind and unable to breathe, his mouth sour. 

_ “Don’t tell anyone,”  _ Laertes growls in his mind. 

_ “You can trust me,”  _ Laertes says, with a smile more genuine than Hamlet has seen from him for a long time. 

_ “I fucking love you; is that what you want to hear?”  _ Laertes cries, this voice the loudest of all. 

What a fucking liar. 

**~~~~~**

_ Hamlet’s Secret Scandal!: A Pansy Prince?  _

_ Prince Homo-let? _

_ Denmark’s Daffodil!  _

_ Advisor’s Son Tells Juicy Details: “He Was Begging For It.”  _

**~~~~~**

Horatio pulls him out of the shower long after the water’s gone cold and he’s shivering, wrapped in a fetal position, his clothes plastered to skeletal ribs and spine. There’s warm towels waiting for him but Hamlet won’t take off his shirt or his pants to be dry. Not in front of Horatio. Not now. 

“Your lips are blue,” Horatio says, wrapping Hamlet in more blankets. Hamlet won’t look him in the eyes. He doesn’t want to see what’s there. Concern, he’s used to. Anger is harder to stomach, yet still bearable. 

But the possibility that he’ll find disgust is something Hamlet can’t come back from. 

“He’s going to kill me,” he whispers instead, the gravity of that statement a sudden crushing weight.

“Who?” Horatio stares at him. Hamlet stares at a bit of the wall near the windows. “Hamlet, who?” 

“The king.” 

_ The king  _ seems more appropriate than  _ my father.  _ A father wouldn’t-

“Hamlet,” Horatio says. Something about how he says it is cataclysmic. A hurricane, and Hamlet shakes with it, his sobs threatening to pull him under. 

Horatio holds him over the waves as he cries. When it is over, he is soaked, and Hamlet is all dry. 

**~~~~~**  


This is what happened, Hamlet tells Horatio, days later, when he can say anything about it without crying: 

-He and Laertes were in some sort of physical relationship. There were undefined lines. Hamlet didn’t even know if Laertes liked him as a person or not. 

-At some point along the line, they became friends. 

-Laertes had feelings for him, and maybe had been since the beginning. 

-Laertes told him that. 

-Hamlet said, “I don’t love you” 

-Laertes got upset, said a lot of mean things to Hamlet (that Hamlet couldn’t repeat without breaking down), got drunk, and outed Hamlet to the entire world. Or at least that was what it felt like. 

“What do you think of him?” says Horatio, after Hamlet has told him this. He sits in a chair beside Hamlet’s bed. Hamlet can’t have Horatio on his bed, in his bed. He wants nothing more to be held right now, and yet he can’t think about touching Horatio without feeling sick and guilty and dirty. He wants to say sorry. He doesn’t even know where to start. 

“I hate him,” Hamlet says. Exhaustion pushes down his chest into the mattress. He doesn’t want to think about it any more. He can’t think about anything else. “I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone.” 

“How did you feel before?” 

“Before?” 

“Before he… did this.” 

“Before he ruined my fucking life?” Hamlet rubs at his eyes. “I don’t know. He kind of  _ was _ my life. God, that sounds pathetic.” 

Horatio sighs, and Hamlet thinks maybe he’s angry, but there’s no way he will let Hamlet know that. “Why- why did you never tell me?” 

“I wanted to…” he says, truthfully. “But I- I knew you’d tell me to stop. You’d convince me to… stop. And I didn’t… want to. And then… you know.” 

Horatio nods, his face stone. 

“I didn’t mean any of that stuff,” Hamlet says, shaky. “That I said to you. I was… I don’t know. I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry. You probably hate me now. I wouldn’t blame you.” 

“I could never hate you,” Horatio says. It is very soft. 

“I think you’re the only one.” 

There’s a semi-comfortable silence. Horatio is doing his face that means he’s thinking about something, hard. 

“What’s up?” 

“Can I ask you one thing?” 

“Sure,” Hamlet says with only a little hesitance, waving a hand. “Ask away.” 

“Why him?” 

He makes eye contact with Horatio, sudden, excruciating analysis. Horatio’s eyes scare him; they’re too sad, too upset to be Horatio’s at all. 

Hamlet’s mouth is dry. “What do you mean?” 

“Out of anyone. You could have had anyone you wanted. Someone who wouldn’t treat you like that. Someone who wouldn’t… change you like that. I-” He shakes his head. “So then why- why did you let  _ him _ ?” 

Hamlet thinks:  _ I don’t know the answer.  _

But he does. Somewhere deep inside, he feels it, the truth, twisting him around and around to the point he could break. He can’t find the words, can’t stand to go looking for them. 

“Did you love him?” Horatio says, and he seems so tired. Like the mother of a young child, resigned to the endless barrage of Hamlet’s issues he has to deal with. He’s still looking at Hamlet with that unreadable face. “You don’t have to answer,” he continues. 

“Horatio-” 

But Horatio’s already closed himself off, shut the door. “I should go. I have homework. Call me if you- yeah,” he says, the unspoken heavy in the air around them. 

When Horatio is gone, when everyone is gone, and when Hamlet is alone, he takes Laertes’ shirt from under his bed. He puts it on. He folds his knees up to his chest, and buries his face in the cold fabric, and cries. 

**Author's Note:**

> oof 
> 
>  
> 
>  
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> (ps it's ok he and horatio end up falling in love once hamlet learns to not be a dick and no one dies and laertes gets to be with lamond and it's all FINE)


End file.
